


wrap it around me like a sheet

by la_victorienne



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-17
Updated: 2009-01-17
Packaged: 2018-10-16 00:53:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10560626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_victorienne/pseuds/la_victorienne
Summary: in a nameless house on a nameless holiday, ianto and jack are stargazing.





	

Out from the silent portal of the hours,  
When frosts are come and all the hosts put on.  
Their burnished gear to march across the night  
And o'er a darkened earth in splendor shine,  
Slowly above the world Orion wheels  
His glittering square, while on the shadowy hill  
And throbbing like a sea-light through the dusk,  
Great Sirius rises in his flashing blue.  
\-- Bliss Carman  
The Winter Scene - Part II

“The Doctor got us stuck on that one for a while. Rose and I ran more than we’d ever run in our lives that day, from what felt like one end of the planet to the other. It was hot, and we were exhausted from playing shuffleboard in the TARDIS for hours the night before, and the Doctor just laughed as we finally got back to the ship and flew away, until we both started to laugh too.” Jack sighs and brings his pointing arm back into the protective cocoon of blankets he and Ianto have built on the roof of their rented country house. In the lee of the wind, sharing body heat with Jack’s greatcoat spread about them and every blanket in the house dragged out for the stargazing, Ianto tucks himself into the crook of Jack’s arm and listens to his stories.

It took Jack a while to stop telling outlandish ones, perpetually involving his sexual conquests all over the universe and some sort of impossible bondage, but when he finally abandoned the stories about aliens with a truly staggering number of tentacles and tentatively mentioned the Doctor, Ianto knew he’d made it past the first and largest barrier of Jack’s protective walls. Now Jack talks to Ianto conspiratorially, as if Ianto himself travelled with the three, and often now Ianto feels like he did, in fact, abandon Torchwood and Lisa those few and many years ago in order to see the things Jack has seen, through sheer intimacy with the tales. Jack is a good storyteller, when he’s not lying; he knows what parts are important to explain and what details can be left by the way, knows the value of a well-placed character voice and the exact timbre necessary for each section of the story, and Ianto enjoys hearing him talk almost as much as he enjoys hearing him laugh. The subject matter, the incredible adventures, the exhilaration of the chase, the past lovers and lost loves – that all comes second, in Ianto’s heart, to the expression on Jack’s face as he twists his voice in just the right way to tell the perfect nuance of the story. Ianto cherishes every one.

He scoots closer, presses a comfortable kiss to Jack’s cheek. “Did she laugh until she cried?”

“We all did,” Jack replied, with a smile that seemed brighter to Ianto’s eyes than the stars he was staring at. “It was a beautiful day.” He turns his face to kiss Ianto’s head. “But no more beautiful than tonight,” he says softly, and Ianto’s breath hitches.

This, this is no casual declaration of love, no off-hand remark of adoration tossed out to see how Ianto responds. He feels a rush of warmth flood his senses as he realizes that he’s just been compared to the Doctor and Rose, the two people Jack loved the most in this world, and that someday he might be counted among this pantheon of valued persons. The knowledge is daunting, impossible, incredible, and Ianto knows no words to respond to Jack’s offering, so he rolls over until his body is blocking out the stars and his knees are on either side of Jack’s thighs and kisses him, hard. Never has such an intense degree of pure want erased every coherent thought in his brain; never has he been wholly without words in response to Jack; never has he lost all self-control in the scrabble to tear off Jack’s shirt and trousers. But then again, never has he felt so uncontrollably in love, either.

The sensations in their bodies are only heightened by the chill air passing all around them; as the air warms between them the cool exterior hits shoulders and noses in a way that is surprisingly erotic. Ianto has no care for who might see them out in the open – the nearest neighbour is acres away – nor has he any care for what Jack might see of him, borne up and broken out by the sentiment implicit in Jack’s few words. This is Ianto’s gift in return: the brilliance of desire, the honesty of need, and the liberty of love. He only hopes that when they return to the ground, it will have done some good.


End file.
